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Extensive damage and destruction from Hurricane Irma is seen Tuesday at the Seabreeze Trailer Park in Islamorada, Fla. Many of the park's trailer homes were completely destroyed. Loren Elliott/Associated Press

Consider it the Olympics of post-hurricane cleanups - with the Sault Ste. Marie area represented.
Wilderness Environmental Services has sent 21 workers — 10, two-person crews plus a general foreman — to assist efforts to mend Irma-ravaged Florida.
Wilderness Environmental Services president Rob Brewer said Tuesday crews departed Friday and eventually made their way to a Duke Energy — the company with which Wilderness is working — power staging area in Perry, Ga., an area also hit.
“They rode out the storm there,” Brewer told The Sault Star. “They actually lost power and all the rest of it, even in that area. But it wasn’t as bad as, obviously, Florida was.”
Tuesday morning, workers mobilized to St. Petersburg, Fla., on the state’s gulf coast, part of the Tampa Bay area. From there they were slated to be dispatched.
In a “normal hurricane event,” workers would log up to a week or 10 days on duty, Brewer said.
However, a damage assessment done Monday on the St. Petersburg area determined Wilderness employees will likely be stationed there for the next few weeks.
Irma took a parting shot at Florida on Monday, yielding major flooding in the state's northeast corner.
The monster Category 4 disturbance that hit the Florida Keys Sunday was downgraded to tropical storm status as it finally made its way out of the state and into Georgia, where it spawned more damage. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Tuesday Irma had become a post-tropical cyclone and was slated to head northwest through the southeastern U.S. toward the Tennessee Valley, weakening as it went.
At least 10 have died from Florida to South Carolina during the storm — most of them in vehicle accidents — but only three deaths were tagged directly on Irma. Authorities in Georgia said Monday the storm killed at least two there.
Wilderness has helped out in less-severe hurricanes and was “heavily involved” assisting Toronto in the wake of that city’s major 2013 ice storm.
“This is, obviously, a once in a multi-decade thing,” Brewer said.
Technically, Wilderness works with Duke, but goes through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Essentially, Duke put out a request for help, Wilderness replied, then Duke notified the United States Department of Homeland Security agency.
“Then we co-ordinate with FEMA to make sure that the people are cleared to come into the U.S.,” Brewer said. “Once that’s all good, they go down to the border and go through the border process.”
The Aweres Township outfit is partly owned by the U.S. firm, Lewis Tree Service; in total, with Lewis, 1,260 from the overall operation are working on storm cleanup.
Wilderness workers dispatched originated from the Sault, but some were on other projects, including those in Alberta and southern Ontario where the company had contracts.
“So, we didn’t just pull from the Sault to leave it short,” Brewer said. “We left a fairly strong contingent in the Sault. In fact, we may, depending on how things go, supplement from some of those folks at some point. But, no, we’re well covered in the Sault.”
Participation was voluntary, with more interest than the company could “free up.”
“We probably could have sent three or four more bucket crews down,” Brewer said. “But we needed to leave something in case (of demand) at home.
“It makes you really proud that guys would volunteer to drive into a hurricane … And that’s literally what they did.”
Crews were mobilized before Irma even hit.
“It takes a lot of courage to do that and, obviously, we’re pretty proud of them,” Brewer said.
Early, front-line reports from Wilderness workers are hardly surprising.
“It’s pretty massive … It’s just major devastation,” Brewer said.
jougler@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @JeffreyOugler